Vagabonds
by CaptainKase
Summary: After Ed and Al are unceremoniously thrown back into Amestris, they find that they are wanted for horrible crimes that they didn't commit.
1. Prologue

Hey everyone!

Behold, my first honest to God chapter fic. It's a joint project with **Ferio Wind **over here or **sicarius66 **over at Livejournal. The story idea is hers, and she's also illustrating it with some of her absolutely fabulous art, which you can find linked on my profile. I definitely suggest you take a look!

**Spoilers: **Eventual spoilers for the whole series, the movie, and early bits of the manga.

**Warnings: **Mild language and violence.

**Summary: **After Ed and Al are unceremoniously thrown back into Amestris, they find that they are wanted for horrible crimes that they didn't commit.

**Enjoy!**

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Ed opened his eyes and was immediately assaulted by the stark whiteness of the world around him. He rubbed slowly at his aching lids with his automail hand and let his dented trumpet fall to the ground with an endlessly echoing _clang_.

Gate, he thought, awed.

They were in the gate, and it was just as white and empty and sprawling as ever.

He looked up and noted warily that there was at least a ton of rubble suspended above him, hovering and rotating in thin air, and that was when he noticed that he was thrown bodily over his baby brother – an attempt to shield him from some of those massive stones, he remembered. Now, looking at it hovering there, he vaguely realized that his ditch effort to save his baby brother would have done diddly-_sqawt – _he was glad he'd had a backup plan. He could vaguely remember drawing some sort circle over his brother's back, in dirt and debris and maybe blood – he couldn't really tell at this point, it had all happened so fast.

Al twitched and groaned beneath him suddenly, and Ed quickly shoved himself off and put a hand on his brother's back. Al raised himself to his hands and knees with a musical clatter, a metallic scraping noise, that Ed recognized as his little brother's violin. It was in splinters now beneath his brother's hunched form, and despite everything happening, that saddened him. His brother had loved that violin, had taken such good care of it despite everything, and now it was in pieces.

Al still had the bow clutched firmly in his right hand when he raised his eyes to Ed accusingly.

"You broke it!"

Ed gaped. "Al, have you – "

"Why'd you have to pounce on me, I was going to go stand in that doorway, that's what all the experts say to do – " He leaned over the shattered remains of his violin with an absolutely broken look on his face. "Now what'll we do? I'll have to buy a new one, we can't afford that right now!" Suddenly, Al seemed to realize that something much more important than his broken violin was going on, and his jaw went slack with surprise. He stood, shakily, and Ed followed him, brushing off his pants and noting offhandedly that the dust and dirt hung, suspended and stationary, in the air, just like the pieces of building above them. Al reached up to touch one of the swiveling hunks of debris – a giant red 'A' with little lightbulbs in it, probably from the sign of the movie house that they had been performing in front of when the Earthquake had hit.

He watched the 'A' turn in place for a moment, slow and mesmerizing. Ed watched it too, the ticking of a dreamy smile starting on his face, before Al suddenly rounded on him, brandishing his ragged violin bow. "This isn't San Francisco, Brother! What did you do!?" He thwapped Ed over the head with it, and several more horse hairs sprung free.

"Nothing!"

"Liar! Did you kill us?!"

"No!"

"Brother!"

"Not – intentionally!"

"Edward," Al raised his eyebrows, crossed his arms, tapped his foot. Al-speak for answer me now, or else. Ed snorted defiantly before he realized there was no one here to question his dignity (or masculinity) if he succumbed to the intimidation of his six-year (_one year! _his mental-Al chastised firmly and Ed flinched) younger brother.

Ed deflated, and, rubbing the back of his neck, decided there was nothing better to do in the gaping white void than to let his little brother yell at him. "You – remember how we were experimenting with movement of the Earth and plate tectonics and volcanoes and all that? For powering alchemy?"

"Experimenting? Ed, we never got to the _experimenting _stage, all those arrays were purely speculation."

"Right, yeah, I know that," Ed said, before adding under his breath, "if _someone _had just agreed to splurge on the boat ticket to the Hawaiian Territory, we might have known what that fucking array was going to do!"

"Excuse me for wanting to _eat_, Brother!"

Ed flung his hands into the air. "You're not excused!"

Al thwapped Ed over the head again, and Ed howled and snatched the still swiveling 'A' out of the air, poised to attack when –

_You're not dead._

Ed paused in his assault and looked left and right, up and down. Al, violin bow still raised comically in the air, did the same.

"Did you – ?" Al said, but Ed was already wise to the gate's game.

"Alright, you, show yourself!" He threw the 'A' aside. It never hit the ground, just kept on spinning indefinitely through the air where Ed had thrown it. Ed often forgot that Al had never truly interacted with the gate. He had flown through it enough times, body and soul, and he had been consumed by it, but it had never been in his head, it had never taken apart his soul and displayed it for him. It had taken his memories away, and coldly and clinically, it had given them back. Just the same exact way it had taken his body.

"Brother?"

"You must know the gate by now, Al."

Al's eyebrow's furrowed and his violin bow fell forgotten to his side. "Yeah. Not – _intimately_. I. Remember being here when I – when you – died."

Intimate. That was a good word for what the gate had done to his brain – it had _raped _it. Pillaged, plundered, ravaged.

"I said show yourself!" He snarled.

_We're here. We've been here all along. _

Suddenly, there was a sense of presence. There was no shadow to cast over them because there didn't seem to be a light source here – it was just endless light in all directions, perpetual beams that spread into infinity – but there definitely was a sense of _something_ being there. They turned, simultaneous and slow, and sure enough, there it was. Just as enormous and breathtaking and horrifying as Ed remembered it. He clenched his fists – he hadn't thought he would ever be seeing this again, and he most certainly hadn't missed it.

_Elric brothers. A pleasure to see you again. _

_Alphonse._

Without warning the doors flew wide open, faster than Ed had ever seen them, faster than Ed had thought hinges as old as time capable of, and several slithering black hands shot out. A thousand horrific memories flashed through his head all at once and Ed moved frantically to step in front of his younger brother when he saw where they were headed, but there was no sense of spatial relations here, in this realm controlled by the Gate. Ed could have run forever and his little brother still would have been ten feet away. He could only watch, horrified, as the tiny little hands crept to his brother's face and, ever-so-gently, caressed his cheek. Alphonse blanched to white and shivered.

_We've missed this body. We kept it so nice for you. Do you like it? It's grown so much._

Al nodded, cautiously, as if he was afraid to disturb the hands stroking his cheeks. His eyes flitted to Ed.

"Leave him alone!" Ed screamed to the open air. "What," it came out querulous and weak, so he started again. "What do you want?" That one wasn't much stronger, but it echoed, not just the tail end but the full sentence, indefinitely, until he couldn't hear it anymore. Strong enough. Al clutched firmly at the violin bow in his right hand as the tendril-hands suddenly stopped, receding slightly, and the voice resumed.

_Always straight to business with you, Edward Elric; just like your father._

Ed's felt his nostrils flare out at the offhanded mention of a man he respected now and repeated, "What do you want?" Because that question would make or break him.

_What makes you think We want anything?_

"You always want something!"

_You insult Us Edward._

"Don't insult them, Ed!" Al hissed from his place a few feet away.

The Gate's laughter sounded like a thunderstorm, a thousand chittering voices descending on them at once.

_No, he is right, We do want something. But We don't need it from you._

There was a sudden influx of cold air, and then, with a faint popping noise, they were surrounded by hundreds of people. Al shied away from those around him, shifting discreetly toward Ed, and even though Ed was inclined to do the same, he stood his ground in the face of the Gate.

The people weren't alive like he and Al were, that was for certain. They were gray-tinted and ragged-looking. Torn clothes and open red wounds and darkly burned skin. A man on Al's right was standing freely, but his eye socket was hideously empty and the left side of his body was caved in entirely, like something tremendously heavy had landed on him.

Ed eyed the rubble above him, and tried not to think about what he would have looked like if the array hadn't worked. The people around him just swayed quietly in the open air.

_We wanted life. The Earthquake that brought you here took it. This is good enough. We assume you want through?_

Ed glanced over at Al and licked his lips. "Yeah. We want through."

Al gazed at the void inside the gate dubiously. "Wait – you're just going to take these people and let us go? You're not going to take anything from us?"

_Much life was taken today, and you have paid much already. We are satisfied._

"You're not going to like – steal an arm from me on my way over?" Ed inquired cautiously.

_Much awaits you on the other side, should you choose to cross. Your price is easily paid. These people grant you that. Your experience grants you that. In addition, We are tired of your constant forays into accessing Us. You wake Us. You pull Us, you push Us. Cross now, never seek our wisdom again._

Ed thought, distantly, that he would have very little trouble with that.

"Well...yeah alright. Send us through." Ed opened his arms genially, felt his voice quaking with the words, and Al looked at him like he'd just made a deal for his soul with the devil himself. Excitement bubbled up in his throat and formed a lump there though, even though Ed refused to acknowledge it just in case this was all a lie, just in case the gate took them inside itself and just shredded them. He swallowed it down, reached out to take Al's hand. They were both shaking when, falteringly, they found each other and exchanged twin looks of anticipation.

The doors rumbled open slowly, and all of the bodies around them simultaneously lifted their heads to watch its progress. Ed adamantly ignored the goosebumps prickling at his skin and kept his eyes on the Gate.

_Farewell Elric brothers. This is the last time we'll meet for quite some time._

They walked forward, and a thousand tiny hands enveloped them in a familiar embrace.

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This is the prologue -- it is relatively short compared to chapters to come.

Feedback is very much appreciated!


	2. Chapter One

**Don't forget that there are lovely illustrations by Ferio Wind posted on my profile for each chapter. The illustrations for chapter one are really amazing. :D **

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Ed had the presence of mind to, when they hit solid ground, roll frantically to the side. Al made a startled yelping noise into his ear when he took him with him, rolling Ed-over-Al-over-Ed to the side, and a second later, there was a ton of rocks where they had just been laying.

"Bastard," Ed breathed out hard, sprawled on the grass beneath a raised cloud of angry dust motes and dandelion seeds. "There's always a catch, isn't there?" Al just panted.

"It seems like it would have been easier to leave the rocks there."

"Yeah, probably too easy. You know how the Gate likes to overcomplicate things."

Beside him, Al rolled over and coughed softly into the dirt. Ed hoisted himself onto his flesh arm and squinted through the rolling clouds of dust. He could hear the rushing sound of a stream from somewhere far off, but he could see very little. It was dark, probably just late evening by the looks of it – there were cicadas chirping all around, and the flickering little lights of fireflies hovered not so far off through the haziness of their entry point. Edward wondered vaguely how long they had spent in the Gate or how the passage of time worked between here and there because it had been around noon when the earthquake had started. Ed knew because he could remember desperately wanting lunch, as a lurching little tug at his stomach reminded him.

"Where do you think we are?" he intoned mildly.

Al looked down and clenched both his hands in the long grass beneath him. It was well and truly _green_, Ed noted, even in the dimness of the night. Not the gray-green that grass in the other world had been, but bright and cheerful and natural and _green_. It reminded him of his childhood, and he leaned down and inhaled it before he could stop himself. Al knew exactly why though, as only Al could, and he clenched his fistfuls enough to break off several pieces, brought it up to his nose and inhaled deeply along with him. It smelled – fresh. Dewy. Full of life and moisture. Oh, how Ed had missed that.

"I think we're...home," Al responded simply, finally, and that was good enough for Ed.

Ed stood unsteadily, vertigo combined with hunger sending his stomach into a series of uncomfortable systematic spasms and shaky little spurts of stomach acid up the back of his throat. The trip through the gate never had been easy, had it? The last time he had gone through like this, minus a rocket ship, he had been incapacitated enough that stomach problems were the least of his worries. But now...

The clarity of the new world, previously so refreshing, was suddenly too much in the wake of utterly dull senses for the last six years and a complete void of them for the last several hours. The world outside their little cloud of dust would have burned at his eyes with its vibrancy were it not for the dusky lighting. The air nipped his lungs with its freshness, and his nose stung when the familiar dirtiness of the soil dissipated and the wonderful, potent, sweet smells of nature that had once been habitual and commonplace took its place.

Al rose too, promptly tripping over a raised tree root beside him. He mumbled a curse under his breath, rubbed at his head, and Ed felt a sudden inexplicable burst of love in the back of his chest. How had he ever leapt worlds without Al there? How had he ever hoped to reach his home without Al's help, once upon a time? Al experiencing things with him was so second nature; Al's curses were his curses, Al's tears were his tears. He and Al had been through everything together and now they were really home, really alive, really flesh and blood, and really together forever so long as their luck held out.

Things were almost going too well.

Abruptly, he thrust his hand into the open air and found Al's in the darkness. He half expected Al to throw him off – lately he had been fiercely attempting to maintain some semblance of independence in his brother's presence, and that put hand-holding and most forms of physical contact out of bounds. But he just felt a gentle squeeze through his glove, saw the faint outline of Al's smile through the darkness, and Al started forward on quaking legs with Ed close behind him. Ed was inexplicably, incredibly glad for it. Contact was something he needed for reasons he couldn't really understand himself, just then.

Ed let him lead as they picked their way through brambles and tree roots. The rushing sound of the stream grew farther away as the forest slowly thinned and fewer and fewer tree roots jutted out under them. Ed kept tight hold of his little brother's hand and swallowed back the bile at the back of his throat. The back of Al's head bobbed rhythmically above him as they walked.

When they reached the edge of the forest a few minutes later, Ed realized that he'd known all along where the gate had dropped him. He had walked that particular path several times before. He had picked his way through that forest on shorter legs, his familiar red coat, forgotten and moth-eaten at a hotel in San Francisco, had skimmed that moss, he had been on his brother's back as he had stepped over those tree roots – younger and less obtrusive. He had smelled that grass and heard that stream. Most of the time he had been whining about the inevitable meeting awaiting him a few paces away or about the injustice of missing a train at the last station and having to walk _all the way _to HQ a town away just to be in to report to the Colonel on time.

The lights of East City twinkled in the distance, and Ed held very tightly onto Al's hand. Al towered above him, moved his mouth wordlessly, and squeezed back, weak as a kitten.

"I can't believe we were in San Francisco this morning," Ed said finally.

"San Francisco doesn't exist here, Brother, you'd better get over talking about it like that," Al whispered back dreamily.

The city looked...bigger. His heart hammered in his chest at the thought that things had changed while he was away, at the thought that things wouldn't be just the way he had left them. Al wouldn't be nearly as concerned in that department, because he had been gone only three years to Edward's six. Already, their conversations in the other world had been peppered with changing things that had intimidated Ed. The recovery of Liore was a particular sore spot that Al recounted often. The last time Ed had seen it, it had been an empty slab of sandy earth afloat in a desert sea. To think that there were buildings there now, to think that people were rebuilding their lives there, seemed an insult to the memory of the thousands of soldiers that had died there.

"You know what this means Ed – we're not far from Risembool, we could catch a train – "

Ed patted his pockets and they jingled with American coin. "That's a no-go Al, unless you know the Amestris-America exchange rate and care to share – "

"...Oh. Right."

"Yeah."

They sat silence for a moment, and fireflies swarmed around their calves.

"We could walk." A classic solution, one that had served them well on many-a-missed-train days. But – but –

"I'm fucking exhausted," he said and he fell loose of Al's weak grip when Al reached up to rub at his eyes in agreement. His stomach rumbled at him and squeezed acid, not liking the idea of no food at all, but what were they going to do about it? Granny would feed them. Once they got back to Risembool, Granny would stuff them with all kinds of foods and –

Ed's stomach lurched. Was Granny even alive?

"We're not going anywhere in the dark anyway. It's been years since we walked that road and we're not about to do it blind," Al said, ever the sensible one, as he planted his butt in a tall and soft looking patch of grass not too far away. Ed joined him, before long. It was warm enough that they didn't really need blankets, but Ed huddled in close to his brother anyway, feeling needy for attention and dependent in a way that he hadn't since he'd crawled into bed with his brother three years before, when they were fresh through the gate and Edward was trying to decide whether Alfons Heiderich, his lifeline of two years, was really dead or not.

Al was asleep almost instantly, but Edward lingered in his wakefulness long enough to watch the lights of East City dim as the twinkling of window lights dwindled with the day.

He had hardly even realized he'd gone under until he woke to Al's same gentle breaths that had lulled him to sleep hours earlier. He looked up and saw the sun high in the sky. He was losing more time than he knew what to do with lately, honestly. Already half a day had gone by with them dozing in the sun like lazy house cats. Ed sat up and was about to shake his little brother when a startled little gasp sounded from a little ways away. It was as light as the distant gurgling of the stream was now, but Ed was mentally attuned to sounds of distress and had been ever since he had been twelve with a sense of justice bigger than himself.

He looked around and saw that they had settled in a meadow, big and lush and painted with wildflowers. Unintentionally enough, they had hidden in a mess of weeds and grass tall enough to shield them from prying eyes, but sitting up had alerted their presence to a little girl, no older than eight, with curly black pigtails and wide blue eyes. She had a bouquet of little red wildflowers and vivid yellow dandelions clenched in one hand, and her other was balled at her mouth. Her eyes were wide and distrustful, so Ed put on his best winning smile.

"Hey kid," he said, and his voice was husky from sleep. The little girl took a single step back. He didn't exactly blame her – he probably looked something awful. He reached up with his right hand to rub at his face and dragged it back through his bangs, dislodging his hat. His long braid was a mess and his scalp was tangled with grass and leaves and petals. However, he didn't think that his appearance necessarily merited the pure horror on the face of the little girl before him. He looked bad, but he wasn't missing any limbs or bleeding or – wait, was he?

He skimmed his face again and checked his white gloves for blood. Nothing. His automail peeked through the gap between his sleeve and his glove for an instant as Ed lowered his hand, though, and the little girl gasped again, louder this time, and dropped the tiny bouquet. The flowers scattered, and a gentle breeze lifted one of the light red ones over the grass and toward the patch where Ed and Al slept. Ed looked at it, stark and bloodlike against the fabric of his dull brown pants, and then pinched the little stem between two automail fingers. He offered it out to the little girl and smiled again, letting it crinkle at the skin under his eyes and lift into his irises. It was a whole-hearted, open smile. A peace offering.

The little girl just shook her head vehemently though, and took another slow step backward.

"You're the man from the posters!" She squeaked. Ed raised a bemused eyebrow in her direction, and Al chose that moment to raise his head beside him. His hair was skewed comically to one side, and one side of his face was red and lined in criss-crossing imprints of grass. One gray eye focused on the little girl even as the grass-lined one stayed shut in a way that was quite possibly as un-intimidating as was humanly possible. Ed ruffled Al's hair with his human hand before returning his attention to the little girl. He had thought that his little brother's appearance would calm her somewhat – he couldn't say what he looked like, but he knew that his little brother didn't look like any sort of murderer, rapist, or otherwise. He thrust the offered flower toward her more urgently, but her look of terror didn't disappear. Indeed, it had almost – _intensified _with his baby brother's appearance.

Her eyes flashed back and forth between them for a moment longer, disbelieving, before she turned completely and sprinted toward the not-so-faraway suburbs of East City, bare feet blurred and pigtails flying out behind her. Al watched her stealthy retreat with mild interest before drawling, "What was _that _all about? Did you do something to her?"

Ed trained his eyes on her a moment longer, letting them narrow with the green intensity of the plants around them in the light of day. "No. No, I didn't do anything to her."

Al just smirked, "Well you are pretty scary. I can understand her being scared of you – but _me_?" Ed punched him lightly in the arm and Al flopped gently back against the dewy earth.

"I can't believe we're really here. I woke up and thought it was a dream –" Al seemed willing enough to write off the entire incident, but something about the encounter nagged at Ed, something she had said...

"Al, what do you think she meant – from the posters?"

"What?"

"She said I was the man from the posters."

"Huh. How should I know? Maybe Mustang's the leader already and he's using you as a poster boy." Al stretched and yawned hugely, like a cat, and when he was bringing his hands back to his sides, he elbowed Ed in the ribs. "Look, I'm sure it's no big deal."

Ed puckered his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and let out a sharp breath.

"You're probably right."

Still, it niggled at the back of his mind even as he and Al regained their feet after much complaint over the pins and needles and much ribbing for Edward's back-in-the-day talk (_five years ago I could sleep anywhere without a single ache, Al…_). They wandered back into the woods that they had emerged from yesterday evening and had a much easier time of it now that both of them were fully conscious, somewhat adjusted to the new environment, and able to see by the mild sunlight filtering in through the canopy of trees.

Once they reached the stream, Ed dunked his head just to clear it, and emerged willing enough to write off the entire incident as Al had. Ed had been famous in his day, hadn't he? Certainly he had been on enough posters that time he rebuilt the dam right before it flooded. They had thrown a parade for him – Ed grinned as his face dripped with water. Those were the days. And to think that he might be able to relive it soon, to think that he was away from the helplessness of the other world, that he could –

He brought his hands together, as if to clap and dry his hair, but hesitated. Alfons Heiderich's face flashed unbidden into his mind, and he felt his lips twist with the image. He couldn't do alchemy anymore. He could, technically, probably, given how easily the talent had returned to him the first time he had returned here through the Gate. But this time, he had made a mistake – he had allowed the souls of the other world to affect him, he had made the other world his own when he saw no hope of return, and now he couldn't consciously perform the arts that had once come so easily. Not now that he knew he was using human souls.

Al came up behind him suddenly and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. Ed twitched all over at the feel of it, and released some of the tension he hadn't even been aware he'd been carrying. Al said something then that he didn't comprehend at all.

Ed glanced back at him, fuzzily asked him to repeat himself, and blinked a few times to clear his head of the idea that somewhere, Alfons Heiderich might have been used to fix the leg on a chair, mend the wheel of a car, put a leg back on a toy. His Teacher's words had never had more truth than they did now.

"I said, we should probably be able to follow this stream back to Risembool. Remember that back way we took when Mustang was chasing us?" Ed nodded absently. "I think this is a tributary that feeds into that river."

Al stood for another moment, his hand waiting expectantly on Ed's shoulder in another uncharacteristic gesture, until Ed realized that his hands were still poised at his chest, and hastily lowered them. Al didn't inquire and Ed was glad for it. It wasn't something he could really voice right now; there were too many emotions for him to handle here, really.

"Yeah," Ed said finally, voice heavy and sullen. "Yeah I think you're right. Let's go."

The walk was quiet and inconsequential, if not a little bit long. Al tried to start up little trifling conversations every once in a while along the way, but everything about the other world seemed irrelevant now, and that was really all that they had to look back on, and it was really all that they had been looking forward to together. They had planned a dinner with a family in San Jose tonight, and they were supposed to visit the ocean tomorrow. Al once started talking about how much he was looking forward to visiting the beach, but caught himself mid-sentence and just looked sheepishly at the ground.

They should have been used to it by now, the utter uprooting of their lives that they had undergone far too many times in their short lifetimes – like how on the night that their mother died, they had been planning to attend a fair with her the next day – if she had been feeling better. Or how on the night they attempted her resurrection, Winry had waited with a game of checkers open in front of her for hours at least. Winry would play Al, Ed would play winner, they had said, and then their whole life had gone to hell. It was such a strange, disconcerting thing, and Ed wasn't sure he would ever get used to it.

He was sorry to stand up that nice family in Los Angeles, though.

When their walk changed from a tame path to a rocky descent into a river bed, their pace increased, both unconsciously speeding toward a warm home and welcoming arms and – fuck, food. Ed could really have gone for anything, at that point. He might have transmuted something if it hadn't seemed so utterly taboo at the time.

They passed by a rocky little grotto, like a concert shell, caved in and marred with scorch marks and the tell-tale signs of alchemy in every pointed stone. It was so achingly familiar, so strange to see that nothing there had changed much, so reassuring to know that at least Risembool would be welcoming in its consistency. It never did change, not really.

"Al – " Ed whispered the first words that had been spoken in quite some time, trailing his fingers along The Strong Arm Alchemist's long lasting handiwork, over a scorch mark that he could recall had made his – fuck, ridiculous – leather pants heat uncomfortably against his legs.

Al just smiled a little bit fondly in remembrance, and continued on ahead. His eyes scanned the river critically, as if seeing himself jumping out of it –

"Heh, to think that the last time we were walking this, we were wanted men, eh?"

Al smirked. "Dead or alive." They both laughed a bit uncomfortably. It rang too true with something that was nagging at him – fear and 'the man from the wanted poster' and...

"Brother, look! It's Winry's house." Ed glanced up. It was indeed Winry's house, far away in the distance, covered in its beaming yellow paint and beckoning warmly in the waning twilight. Edward couldn't bring himself to be bothered by the little girl just then, because something inside his chest had just exploded, and he took off running past his unsuspecting and still-pensive little brother.

"Last one there has to marry Winry!"

_Is Winry married? Is Winry here? Is Winry – alive?_

"Ew, gross Ed! No fair! You got a head start!"

Ed heard him pounding away after him, old sneakers digging into once-heated gravel with every long stride he took. He knew he was already beaten; Al's legs were just too damn freakishly long. That, and his automail was just so damn _heavy _lately, he really was getting old.

True to form, Al came along side him halfway up the grassy hill leading to Winry's, a wide grin splitting his face. He bypassed Ed quickly enough, and then turned around, hands behind his head in a crude mimicry of relaxation, eyes twinkling in mirth. He didn't say it though, just watched Ed struggle and pant along behind him determinedly, left leg dragging minutely. Al's expression went soft when Ed stumbled over something and cursed his goddamned leg, and they were side by side by the time they'd crested the hill.

Their grins vanished together when they got a good look at the house. It didn't look the same from close up, Ed observed through his panting. The paint was fading terribly and the yard looked unkempt. There was an old junker of a car resting like a dead thing in front of the "Rockbell Automail" sign, which was also faded and striping with age. Ed exchanged a look of dismay with his brother as they approached the staircase that had creaked with age for as long as Ed could remember. It didn't disappoint, and let out a massive groan as they came up the last step.

If they had been racing to get home before, then they slowed exponentially, no longer wanting to see what waited beyond the faded cheerful white of the door – maybe it wasn't even the home they remembered anymore, maybe there was no one even living there any longer.

No one in Risembool ever locked their doors. Ed made a note to put that on the list of things that hadn't changed in the slightest.

He slowly pushed the door open and it went back easily enough, no squeaking hinges. Ed breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the inside looked – just exactly as he remembered it. There was the door to the kitchen, there was the same old sofa, there was that massive ticking clock, there the stairs to the upper levels, there the open door to a sterile white operating room. Fuck, there was the finger paint stain that he had left there at the age of five, a smudged little white handprint still peeking clear as day from beneath an old area rug that he knew as well. And there was a blood spatter that he couldn't remember making but had made all the same.

Ed smiled at his little brother, but Al's eyes trained over his shoulder at something in the distance.

"Brother, look." He gestured the bulletin board that Granny and Winry had always kept filled with "pictures of the family." It was overflowing with newspaper articles and colorful pushpins, and if Ed dared to test his farsightedness, he could see his own name peppered across the board. That wasn't unusual but...but there at the bottom, among some newer looking, less yellowed newsprint was Al's name too, in big letters that said the article probably wasn't about anything good.

Al reached the board and ran his fingers over the wrinkles and creases of the articles even as Ed stayed planted in the doorway.

"What is it?"

"I'm – not sure."

"About us?"

Some things had clearly been highlighted or scribbled through in red, and Ed could see Al's eyes flickering to those first.

"My obituary again?" Ed suggested warily when Al didn't respond for the longest time. Al just shook his head and gestured him over with a vague wave of his hand, eyes never leaving the board.

Ed approached with the same wary conviction that Al had, and immediately saw a headline that made his heart plummet.

_Elric Menaces Strike Again – Warrant Issued for Younger Brother in Wake of Central City Crisis._

Ed's eyes flitted over the article in disbelief before he found his own name brutalized just above Al's.

_Recent Research into Liore Crisis Proves Fullmetal Alchemist at Fault, Local Police put on High Alert After Brothers' Disappearances._

"Al – we're – "

Al just shook his head and shakily lifted his finger to a single headline in the middle of the rest, bigger and bolder than all the others.

_10 Million Sen Reward Issued for Heads of Edward, Alphonse Elric, Parliament Warns Against Terrible Danger in the Event of Apprehension._

"Wanted men," Ed sputtered.

"Dead or alive."

"Al we're – the men on the posters."

"That's not all you're on," a voice rang from the door, old and weathered and wonderfully familiar. "You're on flyers and radio programs and milk cartons and cereal boxes for God's sakes, and you didn't even think to close the door?" And there was Pinako, short and wrinkled and blessedly alive, standing silhouetted in the doorway.

"Granny!" Al trilled, and rushed at her.

"Hello boys," she said softly, and Ed's heart quivered in his chest.

* * *

**Feedback appreciated!**


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter two! Don't forget **Ferio Wind's** illustrations linked on my profile!

* * *

Ed hung back and waited, shuffling his feet, while Granny exchanged a tender hug with Alphonse. He could she her tiny, veined hand running through his shaggy hair, could hear her saying something about him having grown. Granny just made him look bigger, hunched nearly in two to wrap his arms around her, and Ed was hit by just how surreal the situation was all over again. Again. He could see himself being eternally surprised to see these people again, just like he had always been startled to see a familiar face in the crowd in Germany or Britain or America. Here was his surrogate grandmother, a woman who had very nearly raised him, and it _really_ was her this time.

When Al raised from his hunch and discreetly wiped at his eyes, Granny turned to him with her mouth set determinedly downward. Ed – didn't exactly know what to say. He hadn't seen her for six years. He hadn't seen her since she had faded away on a train platform in Risembool when he'd been sixteen and young and reckless and convinced that he was going to Central City to die. His bottom lip quivered of its own volition. Would things be the same; could he talk to her the same way he always had?

"You've grown a bit, pipsqueak," she said, sly, and her lip curled up to one side. Ed smiled. How silly to think that things could change so easily.

"Heh. Too bad I can't say the same for you, hag."

"You're hair's almost longer than you are though, kid. Have you even cut it since I saw you last?" She approached him like he might bolt out the door at any moment and took hold of his long braid where it swung under his arm. She turned it in her weathered hands thoughtfully, spinning it like gold thread and watching it catch the light.

Once. Just once he had cut it. His father had trimmed it when the weight of it had just been too much. But it grew back, and Al had said once that he couldn't stand the idea of Ed cutting it. Never again. So he hadn't, and his head had been lighter despite it all, and he would never cut it again, now.

"Have you taken yours out of that ridiculous bun since we've been gone? I think I can see spiders layin' eggs in there." And then she wrapped her arms around him – not the sort of comment that merited a hug from anyone else, but Granny was different and Granny was the same, and Ed leaned down to plant his face in her shoulder. She smelled the same, too. He wondered if she would ever stop smoking that godforsaken pipe or if she would just perpetually smell earthy and woody and spicy like smoke, forever. Then he wondered why he even bothered to wonder anymore.

"You boys are insane, do you know that?" She untangled herself from Ed and dropped his braid. It swung freely over his arm then, and he straightened himself and righted his hat. Granny just turned abruptly and sniffled hugely, and Ed smiled softly at her back. She was just walking toward the door again to retrieve what looked like a bag of groceries that she had dropped there when the door flew open again and Ed's hand rose unbidden to cover his suddenly pounding heart.

"Gramma, I beat Mom all the way over here!" There was another silhouette in the doorway, shoulders rising and falling rapidly with respiration. Ed could see the ends of wispy tousled hair against the backdrop of sun, and when he stepped further into the house, head cocked slightly to the side, Ed could see dark skin and purple eyes peeking out from beneath the mop of brown.

"Gramma, who – ?"

"That's good, Kain. Now shut the door, you're letting in the heat." She was brusque with him, and Ed could recall that same shortness in the way she had spoken to him and Al as children. The boy looked puzzled but closed the door nonetheless, and Ed stood for a moment, trying to place the face, the eyes, the name with something in his memory. He still stood, stock still, as Granny ushered the boy into the kitchen (Ed remembered the kitchen well, swinging double doors and wonderful smells). He was about to turn to Al to inquire – surely Al would remember, wouldn't he? – when the door swung open and a silhouette appeared for the third time in the golden afternoon sunlight.

"Pinako, did Kain already get here?" she said, gently, before stepping into the house, and Edward could never forget that voice. It was one of the last he had heard before he died, one of the last he had heard before he crossed over for good the first time. He had gone over that last fateful day in the grand ballroom time and time again in his mind, alone and crippled and miserable and sick with all the illnesses his body had never encountered before.

He could still hear it, if he listened closely enough – a haunting call of _my baby _in the midst of all the chaos around him. Gentle and quiet with disuse, but nurturing and calm and soft.

She saw Al first, closer to the door and more in the light than Ed was, and she gasped, and that was familiar too. She had been carrying some sort of shopping bag as well, but she didn't take the care that Pinako had to set it upright on the ground. She dropped it and rushed to his little brother with open arms.

"Al! We thought you were – " she said into his collarbone, but before she had finished the thought she opened her eyes and, peeking over his shoulder, saw Ed standing nonchalantly against the bulletin board lined already with his face. Her eyes were so wide and so shocked over his little brother's shoulder that it was almost comical, and Ed couldn't resist the little smirk and wave he gave her then. She all but screamed, "Kain!" before flinging herself away from Al and bustling toward Ed, lifting her long skirt until it fluttered around her ankles. The little boy appeared from the doorway to the kitchen again, the same puzzled tilt to his eyebrows and a bag of flour perched in the crook of his elbow.

She threw her arms around Ed and he felt several wet kisses on his bristly jaw before she suddenly released him and waved the little boy toward them both. "Kain, this is Edward Elric," she announced grandly, chest inflated with pride and eyes glowing. By the way the boy's eyes widened, Ed could tell he had been spoken of before. He gave a little wave again, smile warm and crooked and barely containing a laugh bubbling at the back of his throat, and Kain's mouth fell open.

"You saved my mom." It was only then that Ed made the connection, glancing back and forth between Rose and the boy hurriedly. This boy was the baby he'd pulled from a stone snake's mouth, that had saved him from being impaled on the end of Wrath's spear.

"...I guess I did, kid."

"You saved me."

"You had a knack for getting into trouble at a very young age," Ed answered with a shade of discomfort coloring his voice.

"You're – the stories. You're real, I knew you were from the pictures but – "

The boy rambled on even as Ed rubbed the ridge of his nose with one automail finger and rolled his eyes toward Al in a 'save me?' gesture. Al just smiled back at him in a very familiar 'you-had-this-coming-you-attention-hoarder' way, and when Ed looked back down, the boy, who, given the fact that Ed knew who he was now, couldn't be older than six or seven, had his right hand plastered to is forehead in some semblance of a rigid military salute. Obviously, nobody had been very thorough in telling The Story of Ed, because he clearly didn't know that Ed wasn't the best little soldier boy in the great Amestris military.

But Ed wasn't so cold-hearted that he was going to stare down a six-year-old with some sort of hero worship for him, so he went straight-backed, stood on the very tips of his toes and put his all into rigidly saluting him right back. The boy looked so utterly overtaken with joy, eyelids fluttering and eyes flashing toward his beaming mother, that Ed really did laugh then and Al too, though he turned away in an attempt to hide it. Kain didn't seem to notice it anyway as he swept into the kitchen shouting, "Gramma!"– no doubt regaling his latest epic encounter.

Ed's laughter faded quickly enough after the boy had left despite the fact that he could feel Rose practically sparking with excitement beside him, because he couldn't stop his eyes flickering toward the door, expecting it to open again with wispy trails of blonde this time. The door stayed stubbornly closed, the doorknob ruthlessly refused to twist. Rose took his arm while he glared at it and led him urgently away from the bulletin board. She was saying something that Ed couldn't hear and Al was agreeing with similar enthusiasm, but still, Ed just willed the door open with everything he had.

It didn't budge.

He hadn't left Winry on the best of terms. Granny and Rose hadn't seen him in six years, but Winry had seen how he'd changed – had predicted it, even – and had been one of the only people he'd encountered with visible hope for his return. That she had been carrying his arm and leg at the time when he crash-landed into the city spoke of blatant devotion that Ed hadn't been able to see immediately, blinded as he was by his little brother and the rather pressing tasks at hand. But – but the more time he spent considering what exactly she had done for him the more he realized that his horribly distracted excuse for gratitude was entirely inadequate.

He had wanted to thank her for three years.

"Winry's in Rush Valley." Granny cut in above his concentration, abruptly patching the twin holes he was boring through the front door. Ed blinked.

"We should call her," he said quickly, voice cracking halfway through. Al looked smug across the room, and when Ed caught him he stuck his tongue out. Honestly.

"Not just yet, Ed. I feel the need to catch you up on some things."

"Then – we should eat," he suggested with some trepidation.

"Edward. Go sit down."

His stomach grumbled its dismay aloud. Fuck. He was hungry. Almost a full day without eating already –

Rose led him to a sofa that he remembered and practically bent his legs at the knees to get him to sit. She never let go of her stranglehold on his arm, even as Ed ran a thoughtful hand over threadbare folds that had seen him struggling against the pain of automail reattachment more times than he cared to count.

Granny stopped his careful contemplation when she thrust a stained white mug of coffee under his nose.

"We should call her sometime soon," Ed conceded carefully, looking into Granny's eyes, then Rose's.

"We will," Granny said. Rose squeezed his flesh elbow. The coffee was hot when he took the first sip and then set the mug distractedly on the end table next to him.

"First though – did you boys meet anyone along the way? Anyone at all?"

Ed started to shake his head in the midst of a careful observation of the cuckoo clock, until a brittle, once-decidedly inconsequential moment surfaced again.

_You're the man from the posters!_

"A little girl," Al provided helpfully for him. "Seven or eight."

Pinako gave a tight-lipped nod. "I should have expected as much. You boys can't do anything without causing a commotion. The rumors will be starting everywhere now."

"It was hardly our fault," Ed said defensively.

"Brother, we were sleeping in an open field."

"How were we to know we're – we're... What are we exactly, Granny?" Rose's face fell at that, but Granny just looked pissed.

"I should have thought that was obvious from the clippings. You're wanted across Amestris, branded as malicious mass murderers."

While Ed couldn't say that the accusations surprised him, it sounded so harsh coming from her mouth like that. Al's expression fell to match Rose's. Ed's eyebrows rose to match Pinako's.

"Bullshit," he muttered.

"The papers don't think so," Rose said, almost sadly. Like her faith had been questioned. Ed remembered that about her, too.

As Rose took a moment to speak her piece about the newspapers, Kain trotted back into the room from the kitchen and sat next to his mother. He eyed her arm around his like a kid eyeing cake on his birthday and kept glancing discreetly around the curve of Rose's body to get another glance in. Ed could recognize the hope in his eyes because he had seen the same darkly gleaming desperation in his little brother's as a child – whenever he spoke of Hohenheim.

Father, it said.

Oh.

Shit.

Ed scootched his butt away from Rose as inconspicuously as possible – she reflexively tightened her hold to death-grip level again, midsentence – and Kain just kept looking at him with those thrice-damned _eyes_. His mouth was dry by the time he was meant to speak again, his head swimming at the thought of being assaulted by something like _this _mere hours after his arrival home.

_It's not my fault your real Dad's an asshole kid, just please stop looking at me, I'm not your dad, I just saved your mom a few times by accident of location._

Damn. What _had _Rose been feeding into that kid's _head_?

When Rose ended her tirade and looked at him with nearly the same earnest, hungry intensity in her eyes, Ed just thought blankly, _Oh. That's what._

Shit.

Rose – couldn't be in love with him.

...Could she? No. Nonono. Because Ed wasn't love material, he wasn't – he wasn't compatible with the female species and he never had been. All that time away from him must have deluded her into some false image of him. Yeah. That was it.

When he'd been sixteen and stupid enough to charge a bull head on if he felt that it had challenged him to, some people had chosen to (mis)interpret that arrogant enthusiasm as bravery or selflessness or some senile shit like that. Rose, Ed knew, might be prone to do that above many others because if he chose to acknowledge it, she had a horrible tendency to fall head over heels for anything on two legs that offered her some sense of security.

Fuck, could he really deal with this and being branded as a mass murderer? There was only so much a man could take on his first day back in a new world, and this little boy was going to be the straw that broke his fucking proverbial back.

"So, we'll have to stop the rumors," Al chimed in just as Ed pried his eyes away from the intense, wide-eyed little boy. "We'll go to Central and we'll speak to – someone. The Prime Minister."

He sounded so determined that Ed could almost, almost think for a moment that something like that would work, if only because Alphonse wanted it to be so. But things weren't fair like that, and they wouldn't let two mass murderers have a friendly little audience with the Prime Minister, the arm in his wasn't a happy-to-see you arm, and a little boy wanted a father, and Ed had never been anything if not perpetually fucked.

Granny interjected with words that were a shade kinder, but no less realistic. "Alphonse, somehow I don't think reasoning with them is going to help. Somehow I think that putting yourself into the public eye is going to land you in jail without a trial or – "

Or with nothing left of them but their heads on a platter in the Prime Minister's chamber and their names on the memo line of someone's big, fat paycheck. Rose gasped at the implication. Kain just eyed him like he was bulletproof and solidgold. Ed pitched sideways and slid snake-like out of Rose's deathgrip, found that for the first time in a long time he'd unearthed a problem that he didn't particularly want to charge head on.

Once he was free, he stretched like that was what he'd been intending to do with his freedom all along, and he rose to his feet to avoid being caught by her again. He took up his coffee cup for another distracted sip, and it roiled uncomfortably in his empty belly.

Alphonse rose to greet him, agitated, like he couldn't stand to be sitting any longer. He paced between the two worn sofas like a caged animal. Ed stood uselessly with a coffee cup, and didn't know what to do now.

"So – what, w-what. What did I _– _we_ – do _– exactly?" Al said after a moment of aimless wandering. Yes. Good question.

Granny pursed her lips. "You, Al, brought on that invasion, three years ago, apparently. It was easy to be wary of you because you made your ability to transfer your soul into things so well known in Liore. I think it was grossly misconstrued as...as you having the ability to bring inanimate things of all sorts to life. Several Lioran's testified about the abilities. Some residents of Central City reported seeing you on-site at the time of the incident." She took a breath. "I think Ed knows what he's accused of." Ed nodded gravely. "Liore and the mass slaughter of the troops there. They scraped together some meager testimonies against him from a few people who really didn't remember their own names after seeing all those men killed, much less the events of the day." She sighed. "From there, it's easy enough for the government to make two and two equal four hundred and blow things out of the water."

"That's all the evidence they had?" Al asked incredulously. "They must have been looking for a scapegoat."

"Well." She thought for a moment, hand tapping gently at her chin, and then, "There was one more thing."

"What, Granny?"

"A circle," Ed cut a glance across to Al at the startled sound he made and saw his eyes widen.

"A – where? What?" he asked quickly.

"In the underground, underneath the city. Where all that mess came from. They seemed to think it started the whole invasion. I'm a little bit hazy on the details but..." She laughed, "They claimed – _you _drew it!"

Al laughed mirthlessly with her for a moment before he nodded tightly and held himself painfully erect, just breathing. His lips trembled. He seemed profoundly affected by the idea that he had been pinned as a menace during his attempts to help the innocent, and Ed could sympathize, he really could, but why...he shouldn't be _this _upset, should he? Not like this. Maybe righteously angry, but not on the verge of tears.

He crossed the room in a few quick strides and took him by the shoulders.

"Al?"

"Brother," Al whispered, sounding devastated. "Maybe I should be caught." He struggled slightly against Ed's hold, and Ed held tighter.

_"Fuck no, don't say that. What are you talking about? Don't let 'em get to you,"_ Ed whispered back in German, attempting to maintain a level of privacy in the conversation before three pairs of prying eyes. They wouldn't know the language, how could they? There was no Germany in Amestris. No Germany, no German.

Catching on, Al whispered back, _"I'd – forgotten until now. I really did – I really did make the circle. The reports are true. I killed them," _in the same guttural language.

Oh. That chaotic day and his little brother's breakdown flashed back to Ed from somewhere in his memory. This again. Damn Al and his damn guilt complex _almost _as big as Ed's own.

_"Alphonse, I thought we went over this – "_

_"We did, but, but back then I thought about it every day, all the time. I got over it. I thought I had. It was easy to dismiss it then when I could do something to stop it or when I was a world away or when I didn't know the body count but Ed – I read, the article – do you know how many people died?"_

No. He didn't want to.

He gingerly wrapped his arms around his brother, as if anything more might break him.

_"Nearly five hundred! Under rubble 'n in fires 'n stray bullets – "_ Al sniffed hard somewhere near his left ear, and when Ed looked up from his smushed position at Al's neck, his face was wet and miserable. Ed let his own face harden, grabbed his brother by the biceps again, and held him firmly at arms length.

_"And do you know how many people I 'killed'? Fucking seven thousand, Alphonse. I know Scar did it, and I c'n whine about what I could have done to stop it until the sun goes down. But – there's you here, 'cause of that, and damn if I can hate myself for it."_

_"Stupid," _Al sobbed on a wretched breath. _"Liore wasn't your fault."_

_"And Central wasn't yours. And now we're together 'cause of that. And I tell you Al, I couldn't, I couldn't have made it another year 'n that hellhole they call Germany alone."_

Ed had become so good at convincing himself that convincing Alphonse came as second nature. But if he was honest with himself, the image of all those troops marching to their deaths even as Ed screamed and screamed for Archer to stop the advance still haunted him. The number seven thousand alone still woke him some nights in a cold sweat. Even now, in broad daylight, his empty stomach squeezed acid at him at the thought of it.

Ed smushed them back together when Alphonse's face melded itself into an anguished sort of acceptance, and they lingered in the embrace a little while. Ed even dared to whisper,_ "I love you, and you didn't do anything I wouldn't have done. I love you." _into his little brother's shoulder despite how utterly un-manly that would be in any German speaking country. But this wasn't a German speaking country. This was their Grandmother's living room, and they were two grown men with dark pasts and lives that had been uprooted a few too many times. They were justified.

They ended the embrace with some manly coughing and hard pats on the back, just to be sure, though.

They both caught Granny's eye at the same moment after their exchange, and her eyebrow was cocked in a way that said clearly I'm-just-not-gonna-ask. Ed avoided looking back at Rose's face, for fear of the expression that would so clearly state her dawning remembrance of her true love's questionable mental state now that she'd seen him babble through an embrace with his little brother.

"Eh – we. Have some things to explain about that day."

"In Amestrian, I hope?"

"Hah – yeah."

"When you're ready," Granny said and nodded sagely.

The living room was quiet for a moment but for the low wind outside against the windowpanes and the ticking of the cuckoo clock on the opposite wall until Al broke the silence with an observation that Ed couldn't bring himself to approach just yet – not on top of everything else.

"Well...what do we do now?" Ed's stomach chose that moment to voice its displeasure to the room at large, letting out a low, deep, audible growl.

Granny gained her feet, smoothed her skirt, and pointed at the kitchen. "We eat," she said simply.

And crisis or no, Ed beat Al in a race to the dining room.

* * *

"General."

Mustang looked up slowly from the latest expense reports, eyes making a lazy trail from the growing deficit to Hawkeye's impassive face.

"Has something surfaced on the other candidates, Colonel?"

"No, sir. There's – " she paused, searching for words. "There's about a ton of rubble on the outskirts of East City. The – the local geologists are puzzled by some of the elements they've found in the few tests they've run already. It hasn't been there for more than a day. It."

"Hmm?"

"From the way the rubble is situated, sir, it looks as if it fell – from the sky, sir."

Mustang raised an eyebrow and steepled his fingers elegantly in front of him, "Well. That is interesting."

"Ah and General – there's one more thing."

"I'm listening, Colonel."

"A mother – a mother called Eastern in hysterics because," she paused, and her lips twitched up in an almost-smile. "Because her daughter claims to have seen the – the Elric brothers, sir."

He stood so abruptly that his rolling chair hit the window behind him. He met her eye across the desk, and there was no doubt they were thinking the same thing.

"The papers?"

"Too late. They're at press, sir. The evening edition is already out for delivery." He swore under his breath.

"Book me a train for East City."

"Done, sir."

"Care to execute a little damage control with me, Hawkeye?"

"I'll book a second presently, General."

"Excellent."

* * *

**Note**: Please excuse the relative slowness of the updates! The author is entirely to blame, I'm afraid, as I've been attempting to stay one chapter ahead of my posting and chapter 3 was giving me fits for some reason (it's still not entirely done, so who knows how long that staying ahead of myself thing will last ;D). Also, the pace of the story itself is moving a little slow right now, too -- also the author's fault. I promise it will pick up soon. Thanks so much for reading -- feedback is very much appreciated.


	4. Chapter Three

Judging from the poll on my profile, it seems a lot of you want to see Vagabonds before I take off! So here's another chapter, and I guess I'll be devoting more time to it from now on. :D

Don't forget to check out **Ferio Wind**'s illustrations. They're really gorgeous, and they're all linked in my profile!

* * *

Ed's conversation with Winry seemed like such a deeply personal thing that Alphonse had trouble staying in the same room as Ed tangled himself in the phone cord. So he stepped outside and ushered Rose out with him. Pinako had already gone to bed and Kain had already been put to bed, and now it was just Ed and Al and Rose awake and too alert from the day's unusual events to even consider sleep at the moment.

Al couldn't help but notice the googly-eyes that Rose continually cast in his brother's direction. Honestly, he'd tried not to notice. He'd pointedly forced his eyes in the other direction during dinner when she'd stolen his place next to Ed or when he first noticed that some part of her had been touching his brother since she walked in the door – because Rose's intentions had been easy to write off as nothing serious in the wake of their miraculous return at first. But it was clear that she had no intention of backing down anytime soon, and even now, as Ed's face twisted in something like pain and he whispered into the receiver in an attempt to find some semblance of privacy, Rose was there, seated at the kitchen table with her head on her hand and her lips curled in a dreamy smile.

Rose flashed her eyes at Ed again and seemed almost disappointed to find him too engrossed in the faltering conversation to notice as she rose to her feet and walked slowly out the door with Alphonse – as if she thought he would turn around to stop her. He didn't, and Al had known he wouldn't because Edward didn't love Rose no matter how much she wanted him to. Just as he didn't love Noa or Winry despite their strong intentions toward him, just as he never really took the approaches of any barmaid seriously. That was just his brother. He had some sort of sex drive anyway, because Al was vaguely aware that he wasn't a virgin anymore (though he really didn't want to know the story behind _that, _honestly, this was his _brother _and associating Ed with sex was just – disgusting), but aside from that, Ed seemed inclined to let commitment to women fall to the wayside in favor of protecting them with everything he had left to give and maintaining a safe, peaceful distance in the meanwhile. Ed was a coward like that and Al was aware of it, but he was proud if only because it was more mature than taking advantage of these women and seeking a purely sexual relationship with someone who cared for him much more deeply.

Rose stepped out into the cool summer air behind him and shut the door softly. Al leaned against the fading white banister of the back porch and eyed the twinkling lights of the town below, noting with a lazy sort of intensity that there hadn't been that many lights three years ago. Huh. What a funny thing it was to imagine a constant place like Risembool changing. He heard Rose approach from behind on the squeaking of the wooden porch, soft-footed. He glanced over as she took a similar position beside him, but instead let her eyes drift upward toward the stars.

"Rose," he said.

"Hmmm?" she murmured back, let her eyes fall to him. When he didn't say anything, she asked, "Al, what was that big display in the living room before dinner?"

Al puffed out his cheeks and let his hands fall loose and limp in front of him. Somewhere beyond the screen door Ed had started raising his voice. Al couldn't hear the words, but it had gone thin and reedy and grating and high, which said he was probably defending himself from an onslaught of automail-induced verbal abuse.

"I did something back then. You remember how – how desperate I was?"

"I remember you throwing yourself onto a suit of armor flying into a massive glowing purple abyss, if that's what you mean."

"Hah. Yeah. Well, I – trusted someone I probably shouldn't've because he told me I could get Edward back. And I did, I did get him back, so I can't say I regret it entirely, but ultimately it _was_ me who let the Thule – those ships, the soldiers – into Central."

"What about Liore?"

"Naw, that wasn't me."

Rose inhaled sharply and glanced back toward the house just as something heavy hit the wall behind them. "I see," was all she said, voice wavering like she'd been betrayed again.

"Rose – "

"But it's not as if – you weren't _controlling _them like they say, were you?"

"No, no. Of course not. It was Ed 'n I who defeated the ships in the end, actually."

She breathed a sigh, but it didn't sound relieved, and all she said was, "Oh," in a bereft sort of exhale. Something else hit the wall behind them, and it sounded a bit heavier. Al desperately hoped that Ed hadn't thrown the telephone. Telephones were damn complicated and he was out of practice just yet. Their back-up plan for paying for repairs was out too, given that it was rather hard to access money in a state bank account when you were wanted by the state. Funny how that works.

They sat in silence for another awkward moment, Rose twiddling with some little gadget on her wrist and Al gazing at the distant Risembool city lights.

"Al," Rose said suddenly. "I know you don't remember – remember back then, but – "

"I do, actually." Rose's face lit a little at that.

"What?"

"I do remember before. When I was in armor."

Rose's face lit in a sudden smile. "Al, that's fantastic! No more stories, then. You really know who I am!"

"Well, yes, though then I was much better acquainted with the top of your head…" She smiled warmly and slapped the back of her hand playfully against his biceps. When he laughed, she scooted a bit closer, abandoning all pretenses that the three year absence had thrust between them, and laid her head on his shoulder. He looked down, and he could only see dark lashes above the crest of her cheeks, the gentle slope of her nose below wispy bangs. She really was a beautiful woman – it was his brother's own fault he hadn't noticed.

"I didn't know you as well as some others in the time before. But sometimes I would still touch you, after you got your body back, and wonder at how warm you were."

Al wondered at that as well. He still did. It gave him goosebumps to think about how hot his blood ran beneath his skin – to think about blood running beneath his skin at all. The time before was hard to connect to the time of now, because it was hard to relive something so utterly sensationless when even the slightest bit of wind or the feeling of a seat or the ground beneath him or the tickling rasp of clothing always assaulted him now. He couldn't think of any way to describe it because it really had been absolutely _nothing_. He had an inclination to call it 'cold' now, but it hadn't been that either.

Back then, he would have given anything he still had to give to feel some sort of chill.

She sighed wistfully, and Al felt her burrowing slightly at his arm. "You still are… Al. You remember the time before then."

"Yes."

"Ed…he – "

Al let out an unconscious groan. "Rose – "

"No! There was something there, Al, there was." Uncertain pause. "…Wasn't there?" She added the last bit as if she was afraid of the answer, doubtful and meek. Ed's return had no doubt manifested that tone. Days before, when their return had seemed like nothing but a far off dream, it had probably been easy to convince herself that of course Ed was interested in her, and of course Ed had been in love with her, and of course Ed would make a suitable replacement for every man that had left her high and dry – if only he would just come home.

But now he was home, and it wasn't difficult to see that Ed didn't feel the same way, that he was happy to see Rose and pleased to be back with her, but she had only received the same hug that Pinako had gotten – one of friendly or even sisterly affection – and that was all that she was ever going to get.

"Rose, I'm not sure you understand my brother."

"I'd like to know him better!"

"No, no. It's not that. There are some things that no one but me will ever understand about him. And it's just that – I've observed that his…eh." Al didn't want to start in on scientific terms and start diagnosing his brother like some sort of lab speciman, but in a way that was accurate. Consistent scientific observation was the only way to really crack Ed's shell. Otherwise, his movements were just too damn sporadic to find any sort of pattern in.

But Al had been on surveillance duty for his whole life, and he was well aware that that was the only way Ed would allow himself to be judged anyway.

"Ed is somewhat crippled in his capacity to maintain a relationship. It's nothing that's your fault, Rose – he's just lost too many people he was close to."

"That's not true, he loves – "

"He just doesn't have the ability to protect as many people as he would want to were he to get close to them." Quietly, Al admitted, "So he doesn't. Not anymore."

"But you – "

"I'm one person, and I nearly exhaust him!" Not by choice. If he didn't know it would crush his brother, he would have told him ages ago that he didn't need protecting. That he didn't have to go spitting mad after every person that dared to impugn his little brother's honor. Rose looked down, pained expression on her face. She looked utterly torn.

"I do remember the time before now. Back then Ed tried to distance himself so many times, and every time he ended up getting attached again. I think – I think he finally decided to break it all off when he left. When everyone he knew just went away. He had no one, and even though he was trying desperately to get everyone back, I can't imagine how – how infinitely painful it would have been to have no one." Al didn't like like to imagine that sort of thing. It always left him feeling down, the implications of two years of isolation. They had no doubt changed his brother in very subtle ways, as Al had been able to realize shortly after his memories were returned to him.

Rose was still looking down when Al looked back over, and he tried to raise her eyes to his with sheer will, begging her to understand that Ed didn't want to be hurt again, that Ed probably wouldn't ever love her the way she wanted him to and that it would be easier to accept that than to make his brother uncomfortable and skittish and shy with her advances. But instead, he saw her shift and tighten her knuckles on the banister in the moonlight. Her teeth grazed her lip, ghostly pale specters against the darkness of her face.

"Rose?"

"I did something stupid, Alphonse," she whispered.

"Come on now, it's not that bad, I just don't want you to get hurt."

"Not that. Something worse."

"…Rose?"

"I told Kain that…that his father was the Fullmetal Alchemist."

Almost a full minute later, Alphonse didn't even realize he hadn't spoken, that his mouth was hanging open stupid with shock, until Rose looked up and her eyes were as pale as her teeth, stark on a vibrant face.

"I – Rose, what the hell! My brother was – fifteen!"

"Don't tell him! Please, don't. I thought you weren't coming back, and saying – how do you explain rape to a six year old boy, Alphonse!? He's his _hero_."

"Fifteen!"

"I'm sor – "

"Winry's coming!" Alphonse turned abruptly to the sound of the screen door slamming against the outer wall. Ed was suddenly there and beaming, hat tilted rakishly to the side and braid slung sloppily over his shoulder. "She's getting on a late train in an hour and she'll be here sometime tomorrow – I told her to wait and take her time, so don't act like I didn't Al, but she's coming anyway." Al lifted his lips in a faltering smile.

"That's great, Ed." Rose didn't even try to smile with him.

It was only then that Ed seemed to notice the stillness, the awkward haze above the chirping of cicadas. "…What's wrong with you two?" Ed lifted an eyebrow. "Did I miss something?"

But before either of them could answer, Granny Pinako was yelling down the stairs to tell them to get in bed already, and they were helpless but to obey. The Elrics retreated to a room they hadn't slept in in a very long time, with twin beds that were too short for Al now, but fit Ed quite snugly indeed.

Ed slept very soundly.

* * *

Ed stepped out of his old room at noon the next day, shut the door quietly so as not to wake Al, and then very nearly landed on a little boy. Kain looked up at him with painfully hopeful eyes as Ed sputtered out some kind of mangled German expletive – the same eyes that had implored him to feel some kind of fatherly affection the night before. Ed rubbed a hand over his face and combed it back into his loose hair. It hung lank and greasy behind him, waved girlishly from the braid, and he wanted nothing more than a nice hot shower.

But then the little boy was right beside him, delicately running little fingers over his automail arm, sleek and shining and very poorly hidden beneath a thin white undershirt. Ed flinched back automatically at having his personal space so blatantly violated, but the little boy didn't seem to notice and continued his quiet exploration of Ed's automail arm.

"Cool," he said under his breath, and smiled up at Ed. Ed shot helpless whithering glances in both directions down the hallway, pleading quietly for Rose or Pinako to come and save him, _please._ Then, the tingling little sensation of _something_ turned into full blown _whoa-why-the-hell-is-there-a-hand-there _when Kain touched the delicate scar tissue just beneath the hem of the boxer shorts Ed had slept in. Ed _really _did flinch back then, abruptly jerking his leg away, and Kain looked up, wide-eyed.

"Does it hurt?" he said.

"Naw," he said in feigned nonchalance, putting his foot down next to Kain again with a soft _click_ against the hard wood hallway. "It's just weird is all, kid."

"…Did it hurt?"

Ed quirked his lips, hoped that his expression was adequately distant. "Yeah. But there are worse things."

"I want automail."

Ed couldn't help but laugh a little. He had spent so long trying to get rid of his. "I really doubt that. It's useful, but don't go hacking your arm off to get one. There _are _worse things than the pain, but it's still not worth it."

"I've seen Aunt Winry making it. She says it doesn't hurt so much as it used to. She said it's getting better."

Ed did smile at that. "That's good to hear. Your Aunt Winry's going to come work on me today."

There was silence for a moment, filled only by Ed scratching at his head again as Kain continued to block his way to the blessed bathroom with his mild contemplation of Ed's automail foot. He let out a loud, frustrated sigh.

"Look, Kain – "

"Yeah, Dad?"

"You – " Whoa. Whoa.

Wait.

Hold the phone.

"Kain, what –"

Al chose that moment to emerge from the door to their shared bedroom, bumping into him from behind. It was clear that he didn't quite have his eyes open yet, because he rubbed stupidly at them for a moment before walking right into him again. _Then _he seemed to realize that he hadn't just walked into the doorframe, and he opened bleary eyes to Ed with what was sure to be an absolutely horrified expression on his face and Kain looking admiringly up at them both. He promptly turned on the heel of his foot, arms still raised and rubbing at nonexistent sleep, and even dumb as Ed was with shock, he recognized the groggy recognition for what it was.

"Al, you – !"

"I don't know anything!"

There was a sharp, grisly knock on the door downstairs. All three froze for a moment before Kain took off running down the stairs, arms out wide and flapping like a bird as he trounced down the steps. "I'll get it!" he singsonged, like he didn't have a care in the world. Al attempted to use the distraction as an opportunity to get the door closed, but Ed's automail fingers were prying at the wood before Al could pull the lock. Ed was pushing at the door, watching his fingers dent at the wood and flake the paint when he heard Granny shout something frantic from the kitchen beneath them. The resistance from the other side stopped, and he knew that Al had realized something at the exact same time he had.

The implications of someone knocking at the door. It could be a patient or a neighbor or a policeman or a military man, but regardless, Ed and Al couldn't be seen. Ed suddenly went from being pushed away from the room to being hastily pulled inside as Granny grandly announced the arrival of a neighbor that Ed remembered. He had repaired their barn once, if he recalled correctly.

Al huddled close to him and they both crowded against the door. After a brief squabble for the area at the floorboards (which Al won without too much trouble) Ed settled for putting his ear against the door and settling his breath to a shallow, hardly-there rasp. He could almost hear the conversation clearly, and Al filled him in on most of the bits he missed.

"I – Elrics are here," said a gruff voice. "Hand them – want – reward."

" – don't – what you're talking about." Pinako. Cold and unyeilding as usual.

"They know we're here, Ed," Al said in a ghost of a whisper against the floor boards.

"I know – sons but – forever."

"Granny's going to get herself killed, this guy sounds serious," Ed said, scraping unconsciously at the door.

"You're crazy." Ed heard that clearly enough and felt his lips quirk.

"Where – they? You looked – stairs, they – close – "

The conversation must have moved closer to the stairs then, because Ed heard footsteps and then the dialogue was much clearer. Ed was almost certain that Granny wouldn't let him upstairs, but he glanced around the room just in case. There was a window that he could escape from without too much trouble – if he'd done it when he was eight and scrawny, he could do it now easily enough. Al squirmed uncomfortably beneath him.

"I saw the papers this morning, Pinako. They're back in Amestris, they were a few scant miles from here just the other day – "

"Mr. Flint, I would appreciate it if you would get out of my house. The boys are dead; I've told you before." Granny had some good acting skills. When she'd said dead, there was a peculiar sort of pained bite to the word that Ed wouldn't have heard if he didn't know his Granny so well. His pride didn't last long in the face of the realization that her expertise had probably come from genuine pain. He never did think about how Granny had reacted to their initial disappearance. This man was right, they _were _like sons to her. How hard it must have been –

"Listen Pinako, I appreciate all you've done for the town and everything – but I just can't condone harboring mass murderers. Those kids are crazy. I know they came up here the last time they were on the run, we've all seen the destruction up by the old forest path. My wife won't feel safe until I bring home their _heads_."

Ed wondered vaguely where this man got off thinking that he could take two (falsely accused) notorious murderers down alone. Were they really the murderers he sought, they could have killed him five times over by now, they could have eaten him alive the moment that he walked through the door. Hell, the stupid man had even _knocked._ Ed had little doubt that his pigheadedness had a lot to do with the inexplicable swelling of the brain that accompanies the possibility of wrangling a reward the size of Ed and Al's.

"You won't find them here. They're dead. Now take your silly axe and go home, you stupid boy."

_Yeah! You tell 'im Pinako!_  
"I said move, you little – " There was a brief scuffling of boots and then a single pound on the bottom stair step before another very familiar voice entered the fray.

"Mr. Flint, may I ask why you're brandishing that axe at my Grandmother?" There was a heavy metallic _thud_ that could only be a toolcase dropping, and then slow, almost dainty, steps across the floor beneath them. Al twitched under him, cast a brief anxious glance up in his direction.

_Winry. _

Well, Mr. Flint was pretty well fucked now. Ed smiled smugly into the door. It was good to know he wouldn't have to scramble out a second story window in his boxer shorts.

"They're not here. We've told you they're not coming back, so why do you keep doing so?"

Ed and Al shifted in silence above them as Winry quietly convinced the man below that they didn't exist. The irony was delicious.

After Winry arrived, the tone dropped to a whisper that Ed and Al could barely hear over the old house noises. Creaking pipes and shifting floorboards and groaning ventilation shafts. Then suddenly there was a slammed door. Al jumped to his feet, rushed over to the window, and leaned out a bit. He gave a gleefully detailed report of their guest lumbering down the dirt road with his head hung in shame. Ed was almost certain that some of it was exaggerated, but that was just alright with him.

When Al shut the window and approached him again, neither of them spoke. They were both unavoidably aware of the stillness on the floor beneath them, the hushed quiet of people restraining themselves. Even Kain's high voice didn't register. They were waiting – they were waiting to see if he would come back.

"Al. Did you hear – Granny could've gotten hurt."

Al nodded. "More will be figuring it out. It must already be in the papers."

If only they hadn't met that _damnable little girl!_

"We – can't stay. It was stupid to come here anyway, damnit!"

"It wasn't our fault, Ed. Calm down. How could we have known?"

They couldn't've. They couldn't – but.

A wrench flew through the door. Blearily, Ed realized that his world had tipped sideways, but he could see from Alphonse sort of chortling over him that this wasn't any sort of horrible threat. Just –

"Winry! Damnit, why don't you ever throw anything at him!?" Ed sat up and rubbed tentatively at the swelling lump on his head, sulkily popping out his bottom lip.

"Reflex. He couldn't feel it and then for the longest time he was just so little and _cute_ that I couldn't."

"Hey!" Al squawked.

"Well." Winry approached them slowly, feet tapping rhythmically in some long-heeled _boot_ that she wouldn't have been caught dead in when he knew her. She eyed Al up and down. "Not so cute anymore." A wrench appeared again out of nowhere, and Al pitched sideways too. She toed him and grunted in a satisfied way when he whimpered and twitched.

"Welcome back." She smiled, and Ed lifted his eyes from her boots to her face, happy and wonderful and heaven help him, was that _make-up_ there?! She extended her hand, and Ed felt his eyes creeping down her arm. Broad shoulder, firm muscles (he remembered those), but her fingers were long and slender, ending in finely sculpted fingernails that definitely didn't belong there. He took her extended hand with his right and just barely felt the tender squeeze there.

"You look good," he said as she helped him up.

"You look thin," she said, then pulled her hand out of his and cupped his cheek with it. Her eyes roved over his face with a painfully tender sort of intensity. "And ungroomed. I think you could use a shave."

"Sure, help him up," Al grouched from the ground. Winry turned to help him too, laughing again, and Ed noted her full figure, slender waist and softly curved hips. She'd really grown into herself. Maybe she had finally realized just how lovely she had always been.

"I was just about to take a shower when – " _a little boy mistook me for his father?_ " – that asshole came to the door."

"Ah, don't mind Mr. Flint. He's been coming here since you two disappeared the first time. His farm isn't doing so well, and he would do anything to keep it from going under." Al straightened himself out – he, unlike Ed, had bothered to dress himself.

"Breakfast then?" he chirped cheerily.

"Try lunch, Al. It's nearly one," said Winry. Al eyed Ed guiltily before making a beeline for the door, and Ed shot him his best _we'll-discuss-this-later _face.

Al left, leaving Ed and Winry alone in a comfortable silence.

"Thank you," Ed whispered after a moment.

"Don't be silly, Edward."

"No. I mean it."

"You told me on the phone. Has this been tearing you up? It's really no big deal, it's just what I do."

"I can't – I can't tell you how much it meant. Back then." He clenched his automail hand, let his eyes drop to it.

"I knew you were coming back," she said warmly. "I'd always known then. I wasn't so sure when you left three years ago, but here you are again. Come on, let's go to the workshop."

"I should get dressed…" he made a half-hearted gesture at the dusty rags lying heaped at the foot of his bed.

"Why, so you can take them off again? Just c'mon."

He followed her out of the room and down the central stairs. They passed Rose on the way there, and while Winry paid her very little mind, Ed couldn't help but notice the way that she eyed him hungrily up and down, possessive and strange in the face of a new female presence. He couldn't help but think of poor Kain, wherever he was. Misguided kid, who honestly thought Ed would be able to stick around and do – what? Teach him to play catch? Ed had hardly had a normal childhood himself, Rose had picked a pretty shitty father figure to foist onto him.

…Had she honestly told him that he was his _son_? Ed desperately wanted to believe that that was an assumption Kain had made himself. But something about the boy's expression said otherwise.

"Ed? Are you still with me? Sit down." Ed did. Right on a stool on the side of the workroom he hadn't realized they'd reached in all his consideration.

"Not there, stupid. Over there." She pointed to a reclining patients' chair, red and covered in fresh crispy paper. That was definitely new – Ed had always just used the living room couch. "Granny decided that the den wasn't cutting it for check-ups anymore." Her lips quirked up at a memory that Edward had very obviously missed. "Look at us, we're almost a proper business now."

Ed moved to the patients' chair and scootched tentatively onto the paper. It crackled loudly in the cold, clinical quiet of the room. There was no carpet, no wallpaper – just the stark white of the walls and the harsh linoleum beneath them. It was such a far cry from the last environment he'd last had a "check-up" in that it was almost humorous.

Winry pulled up a stool beside him as he loudly settled into place, suddenly feeling open and vulnerable under her watchful eye. She propped her chin in her hand and her hand on her knee, bent double and silently considering him. Her eyes traced down his forehead and over his face, past the muscles at his chest and the sinews pulling on his arms. When she reached the hem of his shorts, he blushed and made a weak effort to cover himself in order to retain some sliver of his pride. He'd never been concerned before, he knew, but Winry had never been a _girl _before, either.

"How've you been?" she said, eyes still roving over his features.

"Eh, it's been alright. The elbow sticks a bit sometimes and the ports never fucking stopped aching over there – "

"No, no, Ed. How've _you_ been?"

Ed looked at her, blinked owlishly. "Ah, sometimes I forget you think about more than the metal parts of me." Her smile went a little sour and desperate.

"Of course I do. You know that."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"So?" she urged.

"I've actually been – alright. Better than I had been before, when you saw me the last time. I – Al's a really great kid."

"He looks good." She gently eased his arm up onto the rest beside him and gestured with a waving roll of her wrist. Keep talking.

"He is good. He keeps me in check."

"He has more meat on his bones than you do." Ed plucked up the fabric of the tank top at his chest and billowed it out once. He was admitedly a bit thin, but he'd always been slender, and food hadn't exactly been plentiful in war-torn Germany and America. She smoothed her hands down his shoulder. "That shouldn't be. He's certainly grown more."

Ed jerked his head up at that, and Winry laughed. "Al's got baby fat! I'm all muscle," Ed said, and snorted.

"Yeah tell me about it. You've not got an ounce of fat – that's not healthy, either."

"What, are you my mother now?"

"Excuse me for worrying after you've been gone for three years, Ed. For all I knew, you were dead." She gave him another dangerously hard look. "Look at us, we're still fighting like children." Ed resisted the urge to stick his tongue out.

Just then, Winry apparently decided that Ed hadn't been paying enough attention to the movements around his shoulder, because in a quick jerking motion, Winry had unhooked his arm from the shoulder socket. He gasped loudly in the sheer surprise of suddenly seeing the arm that had been there for three years on his lap, along with the utterly startling feeling of just having an appendage go missing. His brain didn't quite know what to do with the signals it had been sending there, so it flashed white fireworks in front of his eyes instead. Not a painful feeling – just a strange one.

"Winry!" he said breathlessly.

"Don't be a baby."

"Fuck, do you realize how long it's been since I took it out?" He reached up to finger the hole in his shoulder numbly, paper still crinkling obscenely loud behind him. "How would you feel if I just yanked out your arm right now?"

"I'd be grateful, because then I could try out a few prototypes myself. Now sit back and let me clean it." Ed did. Winry got up and puttered around the workroom for a moment gathering supplies, and the familiarity of it all was almost astounding. She returned and set about cleaning it immediately – always a strange feeling, a cloth tickling over nerves that were never meant to be exposed.

"Win – "

"I have a boyfriend. A serious boyfriend." Ed did a doubletake.

"That's – good. Winry?"

"You took too damn long, bastard."

He didn't know how to respond to that.

"Winry. Al and I – can't stay anyway." If anything, he'd learned that from Mr. Flint's visit. Risembool would be the first place they looked for them. Ed almost didn't catch Winry reaching toward her face with the oil-stained cleaning cloth, but there were tears there. Damnit, there always were.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I told myself I wouldn't."

"S'okay, it's just – " Ed squirmed in his discomfort and Winry thwapped at him with the towel. When did women start liking him? Why did girls have to complicate things? Winry didn't used to be a woman, when the hell had that happened?

"I know you can't stay, you never can stay. When'll you be gone this time? A week, a month – for how long!? We just got you back, for God's – where the hell did you even _go_?"

"If it were up to me, I wouldn't leave this time! It's not my fault we're into all this," he gesticulated wildly with his left hand, "_shit _over here!"

"I've got a petition," she said desperately. "The prime minister is a mostly fair man, he'll listen, he will!"

"You sound like Al," Ed mumbled. "I never figured you the idealistic sort."

"And I never knew you were so goddamn jaded, Ed! You've never lost hope before, you just have to fight!"

Fight, fight, fight. Ed was tired of fighting.

"Winry, don't make this harder –" Ed said. He knew he was wheedling, but Winry always did this to him, damnit. "I don't want you to get hurt – you saw what almost happened to Granny down there."

"How _noble_ of you Edward, God forbid little old me get _hurt._" Her cleaning went a little rough then, and she was swiveling the cloth wildly inside his dirty port.

"Damnit, Winry! Not so hard!" She wrenched her hand particularily violently in the socket once more before she turned on the stool and presented him quite abruptly with her back.

"When are you leaving?" she asked, and it warbled dangerously in her throat.

"I dunno. I'll have to talk to Al," he answered quietly. "Soon, probably."

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm – I've never been fair to you."

"I thought. When you called. I thought you were going to tell me something else."

"I'm no good at relationships, Win. You know that."

She turned around, and he saw oil and tear stained cheeks. "You'd better not tell Rose that. She seems to think you're going to whisk her away on a white horse or something."

Ed rolled his eyes up and flopped loudly against the chair. "Geez, why don't any of you guys like Al? He's the nice one, not me."

Winry jabbed him in the ribs under his port. "It's your irresistible charm. We can't keep ourselves away." She sniffed hard and looked him in the eye. Just like that there was understanding. _You know what I am and what I have to do. _She'd always known, he knew, but just like six years had given Rose a false image of him, three years and a tender moment and three more had convinced Winry there was something there between them that never was. Winry was able to realize, he only hoped that Rose could too.

…He also hoped he didn't meet up with Sheska anytime soon only to find that she'd interpreted the cook book as a love letter and the military stipend as a confession.

"Ahh, shaddup." Pause. "Winry do you know what – what Rose tells Kain about me?"

She wiped at her eyes once more and scooted the work bench over the linoleum toward his outstretched leg. "I don't know; I don't see Rose so much anymore. We're usually in different parts of the country. He really has a soft spot for you, though."

"I'd noticed," he said half-heartedly and sighed.

She worked on his leg for a moment more in silence, disconnecting it the same way she had the arm. Ed didn't cause a fuss – he wasn't sure Winry would stand for it, now. And it wasn't quite so much of a shock the second time around.

Finally, after she had properly cleaned both ports and set about attaching a spare leg, Ed spoke up.

"Boyfriend, huh?" She blushed. "_Serious _boyfriend?"

"In…so many words."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he's a cute guy I equipped with an automail leg, okay?"

"Thigh-high? Did he lose it all the way to the – "

"Edward!" Her face went three shades darker.

"I'm just saying – "

"You know I only like you because you're the only boy I know with two pieces of automail."

"Machine geek," he said fondly as he gained his feet, tentatively tapping the spare on the linoleum.

"Alchemy freak," she responded with a soft smile.

_Truce._

* * *

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